Tales of Gensokyo
by Nrvnqsr
Summary: In Gensokyo, many strange and spectacular events occur, and it is up to the denizens of this land to solve these Incidents. Arc 1: Overwhelming Fragrant Sunflower.
1. A Maiden's First Dream

**AN:** Well, here's my first Touhou fanfic - an attempt to make a metaplot of sorts using the Touhou characters from EoSD onwards. More often that not, the plot will diverge from canon - characters showing up differently and at different times to the way they did in canon, etc.

Hope you enjoy!

**Chapter 1: A Maiden's First Dream:**

Have you ever had a dream so good that you don't want to wake up? You bury your head under your pillow, pull the covers around yourself, curl into a warm ball and struggle to stay in that fuzzy state of half-sleep?

If so, I envy you – you have the luck not to be a denizen of Gensokyo; to have a decent night's sleep without being woken by chattering fairies and youkai inconsiderately gliding over your home; to be able to wake in the day at your leisure, look up at a no-doubt familiar ceiling, rather than the beaming face of a certain blonde witch; hear the sweet chirping birdsong outside your window, rather than a loud "Wakey-wakey, Reimu! Get up, get up, got things to do!" before she bustles off to make an impromptu breakfast as much for herself as for me. She's already gone by the time I have the wits to mutter anything halfway intelligible, so I resort to stuffing my head under a pillow, but it's already too late to avoid slipping into full wakefulness.

My name is Reimu Hakurei, sole owner, occupant and tender of the Hakurei shrine. I am by trade a shrine maiden, a fortune-teller, and occasionally, when required, a hunter of youkai. I also have the dubious honour of being the best friend of the golden-eyed woman currently making a din in my kitchen.

She is called Marisa Kirisame, and though she's the same age as me, she acts like someone a decade younger – a raging flood of excitable, enthusiastic reckless chaos, dammed only in the slightest by such things as physical limitations. In an ordinary human, that would be fine – a bit eccentric, but manageable. Unfortunately for me and the world at large, Marisa is a magician; less of the "card-tricks, rabbit-in-a-hat" variety and more along the lines of "blowing a hole through your roof if she so much as sneezes". All in all, a recipe for disaster, or at the very least a major headache if left to her own devices.

As it is, by the time I'd reached the kitchen, she had already filled a pot with water and set it on some… thing – a octagonal chunk of metal, inscribed with trigrams. On the counter beside the pot lay almost the entirety of my food stores, and Marisa was fussing over them, sorting them into piles, humming a song all the while.

"Marisa… what is this?" She turned, bright smile beaming, and after following the line of my gaze to the octagon, gave a proud flourish.

"This is the _Hakkero_! Best invention ever – magic goes in, stuff comes out!" she accidentally brushed a finger against it and leapt away with a yelp. "_Hot_ stuff," she continued, occasionally sucking on her finger. "Got a feeling it'll come in handy lots – right now for boiling water, tomorrow who knows?"

That's something else I have to mention – Marisa has a very odd way of speaking – very fast, very jumbled, often missing out unessential words, and accompanying her speech with wild, frantic arm gestures. The more excited she gets, the less understandable she becomes, and whenever she has a new spell card or invention to show off she's barely able to string together lucid sentences.

"And it's safe, right? It's not going to blow up or anything?" Folding my arms, I fixed her with a patented Hakurei Glare, and she gave a nervous laugh in response.

"Well… it _should_ work. No reason not to, but never actually tried it. Thought maybe explosion in my house wouldn't be such a great thing – huge mess, lotsa books, y'know?"

"So you thought you'd test it out here?"

"Yep! Reimu's house is a lot better than mine to test this stuff – not near forest so no risk of forest fire, not much valuable stuff to lose, and... and… I'll turn it off." Wilting under the glare, she turned to deactivate her magical item. At that moment, the water came to the boil with a piercing whistle, and the pot exploded.

"Whoo! See that, Reimu? See that? It worked!" Marisa crowed and whooped from the spot she'd landed – on top of a few sacks of potatoes. Shards of metal had embedded themselves in the walls and ceiling, and the better part of a potful of boiling water had landed at my feet. This last thing was the reason I wasn't replying – instinct caused me to fly to avoid having scalding water hit me. Instinct doesn't have brakes. So whilst Marisa babbled about the success of her Hakkero, I was having a nice view of the shrine's front yard, now with dislodged tiles rattling down the roof and smashing themselves on the ground – my head having passed through the roof whilst the rest of my body dangled out of the new hole in the ceiling. "Whoa, Reimu! What're you doing all the way up there!? Did you see it, Reimu?"

I wish I was still asleep. It's far too early in the day, and intuition tells me that any day that begins this badly can only get worse.

---

It took some coaxing, but together, we eventually managed to pull me back into the kitchen, Marisa still wearing the same large grin.

"That was a great success," she said, picking up the still faintly-glowing Hakkero as I glanced around the kitchen.

"What do you mean, 'great success'? Your Hakkero wrecked my kitchen." Marisa snorted at that.

"Ah, small things, easily fixed. The house didn't blow up, right? That means it was a success. I'll help fix up, but first breakfast – my treat. Come over to my house, Reimu, I'll rummage up something." Well, she'd just decimated what food I had, and an insistent little rumble informed me that I was in fact too hungry to turn her down.

"Sure, let's go," I replied with a sigh and an unsaid 'you _will_ help fix this hole, Marisa.' The blonde witch grabbed her broom and raced outside, and I followed after her. As she began to take off, I gave a quick check to the donation box at the front of the shrine.

Even in normal circumstances, the Hakurei Shrine isn't in the best place to get regular visitors – the main human settlement in Gensokyo is on the other side of the notoriously dangerous Forest of Magic. Difficult to navigate through, and full of wandering youkai who would devour a human without hesitation, a normal human would have to have a tremendous amount of luck to get through. There's only a single human I know of that lives there, and no prizes for guessing who that is.

Even if one were to navigate the forest, they would then have to climb up several hundred steps on a rather unforgiving slope. It's hard to bear a grudge against them if they aren't feeling particularly charitable after all that, but a donation box full of nothing but dead leaves is still a less-than pleasant sight, especially considering my lack of food. I've thought about moving closer to a village, but in the end it's just too much effort to bother with. Marisa's already in the sky, circling the shrine by the time I've closed the lid, and so I fly up to join her.

Yes, fly – I'm not exactly a normal human either; I have two special abilities – one I was born with, and one I received when I became a shrine maiden. The ability I was born with was flight; it's as natural to me as walking. In most places, I'm sure it would be a fantastic ability, beloved and envied in equal measure. However, in Gensokyo, it's just a skill – one you have to work hard at to achieve, but achievable by most nevertheless. In some cases, my "gift" is even inferior to the flight of others – Marisa can fly faster than I can, for instance. However, unlike her, I can fly pretty much indefinitely; a marathon runner to her 100m sprinter.

Nevertheless, flying has a lot of benefits – flying over the forest of magic means we can avoid a great deal of trouble, and it will be far quicker than walking. Marisa completes her latest lap around the perimeter as I reach the same altitude, and gives me a wink.

"Come on, slow-poke! Belly's rumbling, and sooner we get home, sooner we can fill it up!" She laughed, and with a click of her heels sped off into the distance. I made no effort to match her speed, but instead took an easier, more leisurely pace, taking in the sights of Gensokyo from the air – the vast expanse of deep green that was the Forest of Magic, the great mountains jutting out over the horizon, the way the sun sparkled over Lake Elf and its islands… Wait, when was there a building on that island? I started to call out to Marisa, when my stomach made its grievances known again. Well, the building wasn't going to go anywhere soon – it could wait until after breakfast.

---

Marisa's house was a little cottage in a clearing. One would say it looked more like the house of a retired old couple retreating for a life of peace and quiet than the house of a witch living life at breakneck speed – there were a couple of patchwork repairs on the thatched roof, and the garden was rather unkempt, but it seemed perfectly fine from the outside. That all changed once you passed through the front door. From then on, it was a labyrinth of odds and ends littered haphazardly over the floor; clothes, books, and various trinkets I had no idea of.

"Ah, watch your feet – bit messy, just a bit. Food'll be ready soon." She tiptoed over, across and around the detritus on the floor. I chose to hover a bit, about a foot above the ground, and levitate over.

"No, Marisa, I'll be making breakfast. The last thing we need is for your house to catch on fire."

"No worries – tweaked Hakkero on the way – won't blow up again, promise! Sure as… as… okay, you can cook."

The patented Hakurei Glare can work wonders sometimes.

Breakfast turned out to be a couple of bowls of soup (I may have offered to cook, but that didn't mean I was going to do anything fancy) cooked in a slower but safer way than Marisa was used to. She made sure to let me know several times how she was going to starve to death before I was done, but quieted down soon enough once food had actually arrived. I let her finish her first bowl before asking the question I'd been meaning to since she woke me up.

"So, what did you mean when you said we had "things to do" today?" Marisa stopped, spoon halfway to her mouth, and smiled. The sort of small, catlike smile someone does when they know a secret you don't, and intend to milk it for all its worth.

"Maybe you didn't hear all the way from shrine, but strange things've been happening." She counted off on her fingers. "Crops being spoiled; people waking up not knowing where they are or what they've done all day; some people just disappearing and not coming back. Just bam! Gone! Big mystery; nobody can solve it. Whatcha think?"

"How long has this been going on?"

"Couple of days now. Meant to come find you earlier, but had some problems needed fixing." She pointed out the window at her garden. "Came back here, found bugs creeping-crawling all over – size of cats and dogs. Had to wipe 'em out with _Stardust Reverie_."

"Oh? But that would have destroyed your garden, wouldn't it?"

"Yep. Sure did. Wasn't happy, but had to be done. Strange thing is, woke up this morning to come get you, and new plants already growing. Strange stuff." She shrugged. "Ah well, just a small thing. Fast-growing plants can wait – we've got some youkai to go after first."

I gave her garden another look, first. Even considering that this was the Forest of Magic, this was pretty strange. The plants were already at knee-height, and were still growing even now, slowly moving towards the sun. At this rate they'd be bigger than me by this time tomorrow.

"What type of plant is this?"

"Eh, beats me. Not really a planty-person."

"Those are _Helianthus Annuus_," said a voice from behind us. "Sunflowers. I've been spreading them throughout this region." Both Marisa and I turned, to see… nothing but more trees. "Hey! I'm up here! Here!" The person who had been speaking was perched on a treetop, one hand pointed at us, the other on its hip. A pair of antenna protruded from a short mop of green hair, and in the wind, its cloak fluttered dramatically.

"Ah! Reimu, it's a youkai!" Marisa pointed back, and the figure folded its arms and chuckled.

"That's right. My name is… ah!" Before it could finish the sentence, I had produced and thrown an Ofuda at it – a rectangular piece of paper inscribed with charms. As soon as it touched it, the Ofuda detonated, and blew the youkai out of the tree. Snapping branches announced its descent before it finally thudded onto the ground. "Y-you… you can't do that! You have to let your opponent introduce themselves before you start a fight!" It quickly leapt to its feet.

"Reimu Hakurei. Marisa Kirisame. Introductions over." I pointed at myself, then Marisa, and drew another Ofuda from my sleeve.

"Urgh… fine then! I was going to go easy on you two, but not anymore!" the youkai shook a fist, and put two fingers in its mouth to whistle. A moment later, the ground shook, a thunderous buzzing din sounded and creatures began to pour out of the woods around the bug youkai.

"Eh, they don't look so bad… We can take 'em, right, Reimu?" Marisa hefted her Hakkero in one hand and a wand in the other, before a shadow fell on us. We looked up at the same time to see a beetle larger than her house land, blocking the sunlight.

"This could be a problem," I muttered, as the bug youkai grinned at us from behind its multitude of servants.

I _really_ wish I was still asleep.

---

**AN:** Reviews are always greatly appreciated, since this is the first thing I've written in about a year, and my first foray into the Tohouverse. And please don't hesitate to tell me if you don't like the way I treat a character or if you think my humour sucks, etc.


	2. Escalation

Initial Skirmish:

I suppose now would be as good a time as any to introduce the way we fight in Gensokyo – Danmaku. I suppose you could call it a martial art, of a sort – though that would be misleading – it's no more a single art than music is a single genre; it acts more as a set of guidelines open to individual interpretation.

At its most basic level, however, it's fairly easy to describe – throw projectiles at an enemy until you score a prearranged number of hits, or one side collapses from exhaustion. What those projectiles take the form of is entirely up to their wielder – in my case, Ofuda and the Yin-Yang orbs; in Marisa's, various types of spells. In the case of this youkai, it seemed that it would use lesser youkai as projectiles, and it certainly had a large enough supply of them.

In addition to standard projectiles, we have items commonly known as "Spell Cards". When using magic, chi, or whatever name you'd like to give to the force that makes things work in Gensokyo, our bodies work similarly to an electrical circuit; a simple one with a switch and a bulb. Switch on your power, and you get an effect. Using too much electricity will damage the circuit, though, and using too much magic at once has bad effects on the body. A Spell Card, however, contains more magic than is safe to use at once – they're like giant sponges that we fill up outside of combat, and can then use for a one-use attack more powerful than usual. In layman's terms, our regular attacks are bullets, and a Spell Card is a bomb.

The other important thing to note about Danmaku fights is that as flying is such a common skill, most duels take place in the air, with a third dimension to both look out for and manoeuvre through. This tends to make our fights even less like a traditional martial art, and more like a dogfight between fighter planes.

I could see Marisa already slightly angling her broom to take to the sky at a moment's notice – an action which escaped the notice of the bug youkai, who was busy gloating after the arrival of reinforcements.

"Listen closely, you two! The name of the one about to defeat you is Wriggle Nightbug, queen of the bug youkai. If you get down on your knees and beg, I _might_ show some mercy!"

I always consider it a stroke of luck when my enemy is one of those types that love the sound of their own voice. The time that Wriggle spent boasting was enough to let me activate the second of my abilities, the one I received when I became a shrine maiden.

About a metre away from me, both to the right and left, a pair of spheres began to materialise. Half black, half white, the Hakurei Ying-Yang-orbs slowly span. You may recall I said that I am occasionally a youkai hunter. These orbs are weapons that aid me in that – familiars of a sort. With a mental command, they shot off in opposite directions, flanking one of the lesser youkai in front of me and bombarding it on both sides with needle-like shots. They tore through its carapace like paper, and the beast floundered, then fell. It dissolved before it stopped twitching. Youkai don't die in the way humans do. They are tied to the land; you can destroy their physical form, but they'll return after a time. Their task done, the Yin-Yang orbs returned to my side, humming gently.

Wriggle gaped in shock for a moment, then clenched both fists and jaw, glaring at me. "You… you'll pay for that." At a silent command of her own, the bugs writhed into action. Maws opened, stingers were raised, those with wings began to beat them furiously. The buzzing increased in volume and frequency to a level that caused my teeth to vibrate, and the servants of Wriggle unleashed a barrage of their own.

Marisa shot upwards like a bolt, dodging a clumsy swipe of the gigantic beetle and a wave of projectiles it fired from glowing protrusions across its body. I was unable to fly myself as a trio of wasplike youkai swooped at me from above, forcing me to fight from the ground. Rolling to the side to dodge their aerial attacks, I was almost crushed under one colossal leg of the giant beetle, but ducked behind it to avoid a cicada-like youkai that leapt at me. Marisa zoomed overhead; the wake of her flight causing one of the wasps to lose control and crash.

---

"I'll take care of this one, Reimu!" she called, and flew over the titanic insect's back, shooting star-shaped projectiles of her own that gouged into its carapace. The creature screeched in response, more out of irritation than any real pain, and Marisa had to brake sharply to avoid colliding with a sudden burst in front of her. Clicking her teeth, the witch veered around it; dived to escape a wave of projectiles from behind; and turned to continue her attack. But the beetle was already moving, and from both above and below, groups of smaller beetles flew directly at her. "Unnh… Evasive manoeuvres!" she muttered under her breath, and with one hand clasping her hat to her head, accelerated. Zigzagging a path between her and the youkai, she weaved through their shots fairly easily: rising slightly to pass over one – sharply barrelling to the side to dodge a cluster; firing a few shots of her own to clear the path one youkai had blocked.

It was still not enough. For every youkai she downed, another five were descending from the sky, and the concentration of projectiles was only increasing. If it kept up much longer, she'd be boxed in – there was only so much space for her to manoeuvre. _Ah well, nothing for it. Forced my hand._ As she passed through the temporary breach in the line she'd made, Marisa rotated her broom so that she was hanging upside down, gripping the broom only with her legs, and drew a card from her hat.

"_Stardust Reverie!"_ she shouted, and the card glowed bright white with power, before unleashing its deadly payload. Gigantic star-shaped constructs, daubed in every colour of the rainbow, shot forwards, trailing smaller stars behind them and to their sides. Every youkai touched by one was destroyed, and the larger stars continued on, to the giant beetle. It seemed to brace itself, squatting slightly, as the five stars collided with it one after the other.

Orange hit it first, exploding against its shoulder, blowing chunks of exoskeleton off and sending the beast off balance. Pink hit soon after, in the exposed underbelly, as Yellow caught it from the top and tore a jagged line through its carapace. Green scythed through its limbs on the left side, and finally Blue struck it in its face. Under the barrage, it had no choice but to collapse, and it began to dissolve into fine dust soon after.

"Gotcha!" Marisa shouted, and pumped her fist in the air, before looking for Reimu. There were still a good fifty or so insects across the forest floor, in shades ranging from mud brown to emerald green, to the sharp violet of some of the flowers she usually cultivated. And there, there! A glimpse of red and white, ducking and weaving past insects, throwing her paper slips without pause. Though surrounded, Reimu was never trapped – as an enemy lunged, it would be defeated, and she would slip past it, opening another three potential escape routes before the insects could even react to her. Still, she was surrounded, and Marisa couldn't see the green-haired youkai Wriggle anywhere. Pointing her broom at the melee, she sped forward, with a shouted "I'm coming, Reimu!" Reimu looked up at her, shocked, and screamed… _something_, but Marisa was already accelerating.

Moving fast enough that the scenery around her slightly blurred. Fast enough that she couldn't hear Reimu's scream over the roar of the wind in her ears. Fast enough that she barely registered the shoe right in front of her face before it connected with her jaw, snapping it shut and sending her flying. The impact of the kick caused her vision to white out for a moment, and a fierce ringing in her ears blocked out all other sounds. Squinting through one eye, she saw Wriggle Nightbug glaring at her from on top of her broom. Oh, right, her broom. How could she fly without that? She could already feel her body reaching the peak of the arc the kick had sent her into – gravity would soon follow, and she knew how high up she was – didn't dare to look down, closed her eyes to stop her curiosity getting to her. _This is going to __**hurt**_…

And then she stopped. Just stopped in mid-air. There was a brief moment of discomfort as her body protested at the sudden stop, and she timidly opened one eye. A fairy fluttered above her, arms outstretched and creating a small cyan shield just below the witch's shoulder. Its arms were visibly shaking at this effort. Another two hovered by her torso and leg, also supporting her. Over the ringing in her ears, a voice became slightly audible

"…Ma…sa…eh?"

And on closer inspection, those arms didn't look like a fairy's. They were segmented, with visible joints. The same voice spoke up again, more insistent than ever, though still not completely audible.

"Hey, Marisa… listening?" The witch turned her head to the side, where three other not-quite fairies waited, and then realised she was slowly being lowered to the ground. Looking below, she saw the source of the voice – a woman carrying a thick, heavy book; wearing a pale blue dress that stretched to her ankles, a red hairband, and a frown on her unnaturally pretty face. "I swear, you have far more luck than you deserve. If I wasn't here, you'd be dead, you know?" She motioned with her right hand and the dolls flittered back to her, depositing Marisa onto the ground.

"Ehehe, guess I owe you one, Alice," the golden-haired magician beamed as she looked upside down at her saviour. The puppeteer's frown deepened a bit, then turned into a weary smile.

"I think I have enough of your "owes" to make a collection, Marisa." She extended a hand and helped the other woman to her feet. "But before that, I think we need to deal with this… pest problem."

Marisa staggered a little. "Argh, feelin' a little woozy from that blow." She leant on the other woman. "I think I'm out for this one, Alice."

"Can't be helped," Alice said, as she opened her book. "I suppose you'll just have to sit back and watch the magnificent Alice Margatroid do what she does best."

---

_It's a good thing I'm not claustrophobic_. There were seething walls of chitin on all sides – and taking to the air was no longer an option – they'd closed off any chance of an aerial escape, and trying to soar upwards would lead to being caught in a crossfire.

But this wasn't a perfect wall – it had chinks and gaps. Places to dodge into, past, over, under, through. An Ofuda destroyed an ant and I danced into the space it left, the yin-yang orbs trailing behind and stopping any pursuit. From here there were four separate unoccupied places to move immediately and twenty that could easily be taken from the youkai that occupied them. A centipede reared up to strike, and I slipped past it – planting an Ofuda on its head even as I threw a second into a ladybird, destroying both. From here there were seven places to go, a wasp coming from above, and behind that, Wriggle speeding up and away. Retreating? The green-haired youkai extended a leg, and I saw her target, unaware of the attack headed her way, focusing on me.

"Marisa!" I shouted, far too late for the witch to change course. Wriggle connected the blow with a sickening crack, and sent Marisa flying. Before I knew it, I was taking flight myself, all strategy forgotten. A sharp pain blossomed in my left arm, and a glance there showed a stinger penetrating the white fabric of my sleeve, turning red as it soaked up blood. I didn't care. A spell card was in my hand, and I took a deep breath to say its name, saw Wriggle turn her head towards me and _smile_.

An impact stole the breath from my lungs, and a dragonfly lazily pushed away from me, accelerating away and then turning for another battering-ram-blow. Spinning through the air, I caught a glimpse of Wriggle forming projectiles of her own, vaguely spike-shaped lights, ready to fire at me once I stopped spinning. And if I blocked those, the dragonfly would catch me again. Tsk, I blundered right into this one.

The dragonfly accelerated again, and then jerked. Its abdomen bent at an unnatural angle, and sunlight glinted off wires that had attached themselves to it. Wriggle stared at it, open mouthed, and I took the opportunity to throw another Ofuda at her. This time she had the presence of mind to dodge, and flew straight into the path of a group of fairies… no, _dolls_, barely avoiding the beams they fired from their mouths. Following the path of the wires, my gaze passed down to the figure controlling them, fingers playing a complex melody as she controlled ten separate dolls.

"Reimu! I'll take on the bugs, you get their leader!" she called, and I nodded. Wriggle glanced at her, then me.

"That's… not fair. There's three of you… and just one of me." It was almost pitiful – she looked ready to cry, and must have known she was beaten at that point, but I was in a less-than forgiving mood after being attacked by her. I plucked the spike from my left arm, and held up the Spell Card.

"Spirit Sign: Fantasy Orb". And seven coloured spheres formed in a circle around me, before launching themselves as one at their target. Wriggle screamed and put her arms in front of her face, curling up into a ball as they hit her. The rainbow explosion came complete with thunderous explosion, and the queen of the bug youkai fell limply from the sky, blackened and tattered. A second dragonfly intercepted her as she fell, and sped off into the distance carrying her, but I didn't care. Flying past Alice, her concentration focused on wiping out the remaining lesser youkai here, I reached Marisa, who lay face-up on the ground. She gave a lazy wave as I arrived.

"Yo, Reimu. Sorry about that – wasn't looking where I was going. Wriggle-girl got me good, huh? Lucky Alice was here to catch me, heh." She beamed, eyes closed.

It is very difficult to remain angry with that smile, and truth be told I can't remember what got me angry in the first place. So with a sigh, I just returned the smile.

"Sorry to interrupt you two, but the last of the youkai are gone. I'll expect something in return for saving you two from them." Alice's smug smile was more or less audible, and I had to bite down the urge to respond, just turning to meet Alice's gaze, her eyes flickering from dark green to icy blue and all the hues and shades in between. If it weren't for those strange eyes, it would probably be impossible to tell that Alice wasn't just a rather improbably pretty human.

"No worries, Alice. Feel free to ask any time," Marisa chirped.

"Oh, really? Well, then as a matter of fact I'd like the two of you to come with me. I was heading this way to fetch you, as a matter of fact, when I heard that battle begin."

"Is this about the troubles with the human village?" Marisa sat up, slowly, wincing slightly.

"Not quite. I don't really care what happens with those humans. But I have reason to believe whatever's troubling them has consequences that are going to affect me." She flipped her hair as she strode up to us, her dolls floating behind her. "And as I'm sure you just saw, unlike humans, we youkai have no qualms with fighting each other. Whatever's causing the problems with the human village is also a threat to me, so I'm willing to have you two aid me in defeating it."

I grit my teeth. Unlike Marisa, I've never been that close to the doll-making youkai. Maybe it's because she's not my neighbour, but more likely it's that self-confidence, bordering on arrogance. _I am better than you and I will spare no expense in making sure you know it_, so to speak.

"Why, Alice, you'll have to speak slower – my head's still hurting from that kick, so I might just have not caught that properly, but it sounds to me like you need our help to fight this thing." Alice paused for a moment, and flushed slightly.

"D-don't be absurd. I'm helping you solve this mystery from the goodness of my own heart, here!" Marisa gave that catlike smile again, and leant back, resting her head on her hands.

"Don't believe you. Wouldn't come all this way to get us if you could solve it on your own. Never one to rely on others, nope. Alice looks out for Alice, right?"

The puppeteer's eyes flashed through the colours like crazy, and her fingers twitched, though her mouth set in a grim line.

"Alice," I said, and her gaze flickered to me. "Whatever this thing is, it's got you scared." Now she grit her teeth, and then with a soft "hmph" turned on her heel.

"I see my generosity isn't appreciated by you two, so I'll be returning home. I'll solve this… incident myself!" She barely managed to take a single indignant step before Marisa burst into laughter.

"No need to be so hurt, puppet-girl! We'll help, we'll help. Just wanted to see if my guess was right." Marisa sprang to her feet and stretched, with a full-blown grin now. "Alice would rather turn her back on a problem than confront it head-on. Silly thing to do, Alice." She sauntered over and slung an arm over the puppeteer's shoulder. "Now, what say you we go over to your house, get some tea, and you tell us what you know about this thing? Maybe at night, with torches and scary music? Betcha we'll all be scared soon enough." Leaning over conspiratorially, she half-whispered "Reimu screams like a little girl at ghost stories." I responded with a not-too-gentle tap on the head.

"And aren't you supposed to still be nursing a head injury?" I grumbled, as Marisa stuck out her tongue at me. "Takes more than a bug youkai to put Marisa out of action. Just wanted front-row-seats to see you two fight, was all."

Any further bickering was cut short by a slight giggle from Alice, and Marisa's half-yelled "Hah! Puppet-girl can laugh after all!"

---

"Uu… urgh…" It _hurt_. Everything _hurt_. She wasn't hurt so badly she would die, but healing the damage she had suffered was agony. Breathing through ragged lungs, Wriggle felt more tears drip from her seared eyes. Her entire body was a web of itches as flesh and skin regenerated, but she could not so much as move her limbs to scratch it. Those three… Damn them, damn them, damn them! She'd get her revenge on them for this.

"Oh my, what do we have here?" She felt the breath catch in her throat as _that voice_ rang out next to her. _She_ was here. "Did you do as I asked, little one? Did you attack the witch and the shrine maiden?" She forced her cracked lips apart, and croaked out a word.

"Yes…" _Just as you asked. Just as you commanded._

"Excellent." Through her dim vision, Wriggle saw the boots and skirt of the youkai talking to her, and tried to turn her head to catch a glimpse of her face, but it was obscured by her parasol. She just wanted to see her face again, the woman who had captured her so, body and mind and heart.

"But… I lost…" _I failed you. I'm sorry. So sorry..._

"Oh, I know. You had no hope of ever beating them." There was a soft lilt to that voice, hidden underneath the overwhelming edge of steel. "I just wanted to get their attention. I didn't think they'd hurt you so badly, but you'll heal. I knew you were a tough one when I picked you for this job."

"But… why…?" _Why send me there? Why send me against... them?_

"You wouldn't understand the reason, little one. Just lie still there, it'll be over in a moment." Wriggle felt life returning to one arm, and slowly stretched it out to grasp the other youkai's skirt. She looked down, face impassive, but those eyes, those scarlet eyes, they held all the meaning in the world.

"Please… why…? I just want… to help… Miss… Yuka…" _Don't leave me..._

Yuka Kazami bent down slowly, gently reached a hand to clasp Wriggle's arm, and firmly pulled it away.

"Don't you worry. You've already done your part. You were too weak to ever be more than an underling, even with my assistance. You haven't even made any Spell Cards for yourself. Just close your eyes and sleep for now. Your time on the stage is over." She waved a hand, and knew without seeing that spores from the plants in this grove would lightly scatter over the insect youkai, lulling her into an unwanted slumber. Wriggle didn't stop whispering, pleading for her to give her another chance, until she was overcome by the weariness. Even after the plants stopped producing spores, a rustling amongst them informed Yuka of her other guest. With a nod in her direction, the youkai strode off, and the rustling followed her.

Well, Wriggle had been a useful tool, at least. Her insects were fantastic at spreading flowers, and the young youkai had been so _eager_ to please her. But there was no room in Yuka's future for such a weak youkai, no matter how enthusiastic they were. You made your way in this world by dominating what lay before you - surpassing limits, defeating rivals, destroying opposition. Someone who lost to a single Spell Card wasn't worth even paying attention to. The ones who'd defeated Wriggle, on the other hand...

"It'll almost be like a reunion," she mused, twirling her parasol as she went. "The shrine maiden and the witch and the daughter of Makai, all ripe for the picking." She spared a glance to the figure rustling through the giant flowers of this field, porcelain features and fixed childish smile barely visible past the man-sized flower stems. "And I'm sure you're excited to see them too, my sad little friend." She laughed as the figure nodded, a click-clack as its oversized head rolled on its shoulders. Her slow chuckle soon became hysterical. "Oh my, this will be fun," she said once she was done, and continued on her way, shoots growing into bloom and then withering with her passing. "Fun indeed."

**A/N:**

Firstly, my aplogies forExposition!Reimu in the beginning. If people don't quite understand what she was saying I'll make an abridged version of my Danmaku Battle Rules.

Secondly, please do tell me what you think of the fight scene. I've never been that confident with writing them, so if I have screwed it up, please tell me what you think I should do to improve.

Thirdly, if anyone would like to offer their services as a Beta-Reader I'd be happy to accept.

Fourthly, Alice. Figuring out what characterisation to use for her was difficult considering how different the canon and various fanon takes on her are, but I've decided to go with the canon "self-dependent aloof girl" with some fanon-ish elements tossed in that may or may not be apparent right now.

Finally, I made a few minor edits to the first chapter. Nothing major, but I noticed that the symbols on Hakkero are Trigrams, so edited it to reflect that. If you have any Touhou trivia that you'd like to share, feel free to. Unless it directly contradicts future plans I've made for this fanfic, I'll figure out a way to work it in.

Thanks for all the reviews so far, hope you enjoy this chapter.

EDIT: After consulting character notes, I realised I'd missed out some quite important stuff in the last Yuka/Wriggle part. This is why you don't post a chapter immediately after finishing it without any proof-reading whatsoever. =P


End file.
